After he received the Medal of Freedom, a group of former CIA officials wrote a letter to Tenet, saying, “The reality of Iraq has not made our nation more secure nor has the cause of human liberty been advanced. In fact, your tenure as head of the CIA has helped create a world that is more dangerous.” They called on Tenet to give back his medal. His response? “Never.”
Recipient: Polish resistance fighter Jan Karski (awarded posthumously in 2012)
Awarded by: Barack Obama
Contribution: Serving as a courier for the Polish resistance during World War II and delivering to President Roosevelt the news that Jews in Poland were being murdered by Nazis on a massive scale
Controversy: This time it wasn’t the recipient who drew fire—it was the president. During his speech awarding the medal to Karski, President Obama used the words “Polish death camp.” Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski went ballistic. He called Obama’s gaffe a matter of “ignorance and incompetence” and demanded an apology. The Polish government is so anxious to avoid the term “Polish death camps,” it posts the “proper language” on its website, on a page called Against Polish Death/Concentration Camps: A How-To Guide. Obama’s press secretary amended the president’s official remarks to say that the language should have been, “Nazi death camps in German-occupied Poland. We regret the error.”
The world’s 3 wealthiest families have more assets than the 48 poorest nations combined.
MY MEDAL, MY CHOICE
Because presidents can award the Medal of Freedom to anyone they choose, some pundits claim that a list of recipients says more about the men who awarded the medals than about the honorees. Here are just a few of the hundreds of people favored by U.S. presidents.
• Richard M. Nixon honored Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr., and the crew of Apollo 13 (James A. Lovell, Jr.; John L. Swigert, Jr.; and Fred W. Haise, Jr.).
• Lyndon Baines Johnson gave medals to composer Aaron Copland, opera singer Leontyne Price, CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow, and poet Carl Sandburg.
• Jimmy Carter honored nature photographer Ansel Adams, environmental writer Rachel Carson, civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., and naturalist and bird painter Roger Tory Peterson (of Peterson’s Guides fame).
• Gerald R. Ford honored baseball legend Joe DiMaggio and track star Jesse Owens, as well as world historians Will and Ariel Durant, and Civil War historian Bruce Catton.
• Ronald Reagan awarded medals to Hollywood pals Jimmy Cagney, Frank Sinatra, and Jimmy Stewart, as well as to jazz pianist Count Basie and marine explorer Jacques Cousteau.
• George H. W. Bush gave medals to his Gulf War team, including Gen. “Stormin’ Norman” Schwarzkopf, Gen. Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, and Brent Scowcroft.
• Bill Clinton honored Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and human rights activists Rosa Parks, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Cesar Chavez.
• George W. Bush gave awards to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Columbian President Alvaro Uribe Velez, South African President Nelson Mandela, and Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
• Barack Obama honored baseball’s Stan “the Man” Musial, basketball’s Bill Rusell, NCAA coach Pat Summit, as well as authors Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
Divorce was illegal in Ireland until 1997.
MOVING DAY
Moving is a chore. Imagine if everyone had to do it at the same time.
PACK IT UP!
In 1626 Dutch explorer Peter Minuit set out from New Netherland (now Delaware) for the island of Manhattan, where he planned to start a colony. He arrived there on May 1. The following year the settlers of “New Amsterdam” (now New York City) celebrated the day with a parade. As the colony grew, May 1 grew in importance, ultimately being used as the end-date for housing leases. In time every residential lease in New York ended at the same time, 9:00 a.m. on May 1st. Any tenant who didn’t renew had to move out. This meant that tens of thousands of families (and their possessions) converged onto the streets, rain or shine, every May Day.
The system worked fine when New Amsterdam had only a few thousand colonists, but by 1880 there were a million people living in New York City. By 1945 the population had grown to nearly eight million.
ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK
Every May 2 the city looked like a war zone. The streets were lined with discarded furniture, broken dishes, and forgotten possessions. Mirrors commonly didn’t survive, and newspaper cartoons joked about families forgetting their babies. The city had laws to prohibit movers from price gouging, but cart men were such a commodity that they still charged whatever they wanted.
It seems unthinkable that New Yorkers would stick to an inefficient system that wreaked this kind of havoc, but even a strike by the movers themselves in the early part of the 20th century couldn’t stop the tradition. It took World War II to finally end it. Most of the cartmen and movers were drafted into the military, and replacement movers were difficult to find. Thousands of returning GIs caused a housing shortage in New York. Result: When Moving Day 1945 rolled around, very few people moved. Today, landlords end leases on whatever date they choose.
Thanks, space aliens! The stealth aircraft used in the Bin Laden raid was developed in Area 51.
SIMPSONS MOVIES
Ever notice that when someone walks past a movie theater on The Simpsons, hilarious fake movies like these are being advertised on the marquees?
Transformers of the Caribbean
The Poke of Zorro
Eating Nemo
Das Booty Call
Canadian Graffiti
The Planet from Outer Space
Explosion 2
Face Puncher IV
Cars 3: New Merchandise
Space Mutants 4: The Trilogy Continues
Shakespeare in Heat
Honey, I Hit a School Bus
Too Many Premises!
Dude, Where's My Prostate?
Beach Blanket
Beethoven
My Dinner with Jar Jar
Horrible Premise
Siskel and Ebert: The Movie
Diet Coke: The Movie
Wedgie: The Movie
Look Who's Oinking
Ernest Needs a Kidney
Ernest vs. the Pope
The Smell in Room 19
Happy Little Elves II: The Sequelf
Baby Cops 3: Tired and Cranky
Blacula Meets
Black Dracula
The Re-Deadening
Jackass: The Funeral
Mars Needs Towels
Too Many Grandmas
Editor-in-Chimp
Colonel Dracula
Joins the Navy
Clone Me an Angel
Kill Bill Maher
The Christmas
That Almost
Wasn’t But
Then Was
A Matrix Christmas
Final Chapter 4: A New Beginning
Hail to the Chimp
Freddy vs. Jason vs. Board of Education
Man of the cloth: Before he played baseball, Babe Ruth trained to be a tailor.
TOILET PAPER CAPERS
Toilet paper is such a “regular” part of our daily lives that it’s probably inevitable that it will end up at the center of a crime every now and then.
ROLL PLAYING
In the summer of 2011, the Lawrence, Massachusetts, City Hall had a toilet paper problem: Rolls were inexplicably disappearing faster than usual. It appeared at first that city employees were stealing them…until police stopped a suspicious man as he was carrying a box of toilet paper out of the building. The man—who did not work at City Hall—identified himself as David Pinkham, and admitted he’d been stealing TP and other supplies from City Hall for some time. There were 20 rolls in the box when Pinkham was arrested, and when he was booked at the police station, officers found six more rolls, flattened and stuffed down his pants.
The police had their man, but it w
asn’t until the next day that they discovered who he really was. That was when the real David Pinkham opened the newspaper and saw his name in the paper, next to the booking photo of his brother, Roger Pinkham. Fingerprints soon confirmed that it was Roger, not David, who was sitting in jail. Roger pled guilty to one count of larceny under $250 and one count of furnishing a false name to a police officer. He was sentenced to 20 hours of community service and one year of probation, and ordered to keep away from city hall. (No word on whether he apologized to his brother.)
SHEET CHEATS
In February 2012, an Arizona woman named Cheryl Stephenson was convicted of two counts of wire fraud in connection with a scheme to dupe consumers into buying unnecessary septic-tank-treatment products. In the scheme, telemarketers at FBK Products told consumers that because of government-mandated changes in the composition of toilet paper, they needed a product called Septic Remedy (sold by FBK) to stop the new paper from clogging their septic systems. In addition to being tricked into buying huge quantities of Septic Remedy, “some elderly customers were defrauded into purchasing more than seventy years’ worth of toilet paper,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a press release. Customers gullible enough to fall for the swindle were put on FBK’s “idiot list,” which would have been used in future scams. Eight other FBK employees pled guilty or were awaiting trial in connection with the case. Estimated cost to the victims of the con: $1 million.
Sixty percent of all gold mined each year is made into jewelry.
OH, WAD A NIGHT
In July 2010, a Reidsville, North Carolina, man was charged with assault with a deadly weapon after he stuffed a wad of toilet paper into a black-powder pistol and fired it at his wife. Lonnie Pinnix, 38, apparently got mad at his wife, Darlene, after she stayed out past midnight. He wanted her to leave the home; she refused and climbed into bed instead. That’s when Lonnie shot her in the back with the wad of toilet paper. Darlene suffered powder burns and bruising but was otherwise uninjured. At last report Lonnie was still in the can, awaiting his day in court.
STOLEN ROLL
In October 2011, a 53-year-old South Carolina woman named Linda Kay Johnson was charged with assault and battery after she threw a glass ashtray at her nephew (she missed) and then punched him in the face. Why did she do it? The nephew, 27-year-old Johnathan West, had used some of her toilet paper. After the attack, West called 911. Police responding to the call arrived to find Johnson waiting on the front porch. “Just take me to jail. I’m ready,” she told the cops. (They did.)
* * *
SIX DEGREES OF KYRA SEDGWICK
Actor Kevin Bacon is the subject of the party game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” in which participants link Bacon to any other actor (alive or dead) within six degrees of separation. He’s married to actress Kyra Sedgwick (one degree of separation) of the TNT drama The Closer. A geneaologist informed her that she is related to Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Marilyn Monroe…and Kevin Bacon (they are 10th cousins, once removed).
The top 10 feet of the world’s oceans holds as much heat as the entire atmosphere.
THEY WENT THATAWAY
More famous people who aren’t remarkable just for how they lived, but also for how they died.
FRANK W. WOOLWORTH (1852–1919)
Claim to Fame: Retailing pioneer, founder of the F. W. Woolworth discount store chain, and builder of New York City’s famous Woolworth building, then the tallest building in the world
How He Died: Killed by his pathological fear of dentists
Details: If you like shopping at dollar stores, you have Frank Woolworth (and his boss, William Moore) to thank for it. In 1878 when Woolworth was in his mid-20s and learning the retail business at the Moore & Smith dry goods store in Watertown, New York, Moore told him to stock a table with miscellaneous items and price them all for a nickel. The goods sold so quickly that Woolworth wondered if an entire store of merchandise priced at 5¢ or 10¢ would do well. In 1879 Moore staked him with $300 worth of merchandise to try it in a store of his own…and the Woolworth chain of “five-and-dime” discount stores was born. By 1912 it was one of the country’s largest retail chains.
Woolworth never forgot what he learned at Moore’s side, and when Moore died suddenly in 1915 after a visit to the dentist, Woolworth took one final “lesson” from his mentor: Going to the dentist can kill you. Four years later, he paid for that lesson with his life. He developed a painful toothache but was too afraid to go to a dentist. The infection worsened and five days before his 67th birthday it killed him. By then his chain had grown to more than 1,000 stores and was headquartered in the world’s tallest building. Woolworth had commissioned the 792-foot building himself and paid for it with cash—every penny earned from nickels and dimes. (The story of his granddaughter and heiress, Barbara Hutton, is on page 187.)
BOBBY FULLER (1942–1966)
Claim to Fame: Lead singer and guitarist of the Bobby Fuller Four, known for their 1966 hit, “I Fought the Law (and the Law Won)”
As a young man, President Rutherford Hayes had lyssophobia, the fear of going insane.
How He Died: Mysterious inhalation of gasoline fumes
Details: On July 18, 1966, just four months after “I Fought the Law” reached #9 on the music charts, 23-year-old Fuller’s body was found lying across the front seat of his family’s Oldsmobile in the parking lot outside his Hollywood apartment. His body and clothes were soaked in gasoline, and a partially filled gas can was found inside the car. The coroner ruled the cause of death as “accidental,” caused by inhalation of gasoline fumes inside the closed automobile. Fuller’s fans, friends, and loved ones have wondered about his death ever since. His mother reportedly suspected that he was murdered by a member of the band who was jealous over the attention (and money) that Fuller received. Band members had been arguing in the weeks leading up to Fuller’s death, and Fuller was apparently about to replace them with new backup musicians.
Another theory: Fuller was friendly with a woman whose ex-boyfriend had mob connections. The relationship was platonic, but the ex-boyfriend suspected otherwise and had Fuller roughed up and doused with gasoline as a warning to stay away from her. Fuller was then tossed into his mother’s car, the theory goes, semiconscious, where he later expired form from inhaling the gasoline fumes. Or perhaps he was murdered and his killers either fled or lost their nerve before igniting a fire to destroy the evidence. It’s also possible that Fuller committed suicide. When his band hit the big time and signed with a record label, he lost control over the group’s direction. His mother described him as being “despondent” in the weeks preceeding his death. “I don’t know if it was suicide,” his brother, Randy, told the El Paso Times in 1982. “Because he’s my brother, I’d love to say that it wasn’t. But I don’t know.” The police records remain sealed to this day.
HARRY F. YOUNG (18??–1923)
Claim to Fame: New York City’s last (legal) “Human Fly”
How He Died: Not being able to fly
Details: On March 5, 1923, Young, whose age was not given in newspaper accounts, climbed the facade of New York City’s Martinique Hotel. It was a paid gig: Young received $100 to promote a silent movie with the title Safety Last and was wearing a placard with the movie’s title as he made his way up the building, climbing without ropes, harness, or safety net. “Frequently, in order to give the crowd an extra thrill, Young seemed purposely to let his foot slip,” The New York Times reported. When Young reached the 11th story, his foot did slip—this time for real. The crowd gasped as he plunged to the street below, still wearing his Safety Last placard. He died the instant he hit the sidewalk. A month later the New York City Council banned “street exhibitions of a foolhardy character in climbing the outer walls of buildings by human beings.” Scaling the city’s buildings has been illegal ever since.
Microsoft paid $9 million to use the Rolling Stones song “Start Me Up” in Windows 95 ads.
* * *
THE GOOD OLD DAYS?<
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• Life expectancy: In 1955 it was 68. In 2011 it was 78.
• Car safety: There were 63 million cars on American roads in 1963. Only 8 million of them had seatbelts, and none had additional safety features, such as antilock brakes or airbags. In 2011 there were 125 million cars on the road—virtually all have seatbelts and 80 percent are equipped with airbags.
• Cold remedies: The only real treatment options in the 1950s were Vicks VapoRub and inhaled steam. Fever-reducers like ibuprofen became available in the 1970s, followed soon after by Triaminic, Theraflu, Benadryl, Tylenol Cold, Zicam…
• Measles: Before a vaccination was introduced in 1963, 90 percent of American children contracted the illness. In 2012 most school districts won’t admit a child unless they’re vaccinated, a practice that has virtually eradicated the disease.
• Graduation: In 1965 half of high-school seniors graduated. In 2011 about 80 percent did.
• Banking: If you needed money over the weekend, you had to get it from a live bank teller (before Friday at 3:00 p.m. in most areas). Banks began issuing debit cards—and opening on Saturdays—in the early 1990s.
• Asbestos: It was known to be unsafe as an insulating and fire-proofing material since the 1930s, but asbestos continued to be used in public buildings up to the 1970s. Breathing its fibers led to approximately 250,000 lung cancer deaths.
Mel Brooks’s Silent Movie (1976) has only one spoken word: “Non,” spoken by a mime.
Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (Uncle John's Bathroom Reader) Page 38
